A Brisbane childcare worker accused of sexually abusing children has stood in court to deny the allegations, telling a jury she paid to redact the camera footage because she believed it would exonerate her.
But the prosecution claims Joshua James Capps took advantage of the fact that it was common for educators to have physical contact with children.
Capps pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and three counts of child abuse, which he allegedly committed while working as a teacher at the C&K center in Geebung in 2023.
Capps took the stand Wednesday, the third day of his trial in District Court, and, under questioning by his attorney, denied every accusation against him, including touching tongues with children.
Capps’ lawyer, Jack Kennedy, told the court that his legal team was able to recover the corrupted data from the cameras using “an IT guy in the suburbs”. He said the photos were given to the prosecution.
When asked how he reacted when the allegations were first brought to his attention, Capps said he was relieved by the fact that there were cameras around the station.
“Because there would be pictures of what happened to show that I would be exonerated,” he said.
He told the court educators are allowed to have contact with children, such as holding hands and tickling. Capps was replayed footage of some of the alleged incidents, in which he said he was making fun of a child.
The trial, before Judge Dominique Grigg, heard that Capps allegedly played a game called “doctors” with several children.
The mother of one of the victims, a three-year-old boy, told the trial that she walked in on Capps bending over another child and their tongues were sticking out, touching each other. The boy told his grandfather that Capps was a “bad guy”, the court heard earlier.
Footage played in court showed Capps bending over in front of the children saying: “Doctor, help me, my elbow keeps breaking.” The prosecution said it would rely on CCTV footage, which also showed Capps touching tongues with a two-year-old girl in the same way.
Capps told the court on Wednesday that the day before, he had been participating in “imagination play” with the children.
Prosecutor Arielle Spiteri replayed the tape to Capps and showed portions of the footage of her passed out. He noted several times where he was looking around, which Capps agreed with.
Spiteri told Capps that he was looking around because he was about to do something he shouldn’t have done.
Capps replied: “No, because it’s a playground full of kids.”
Spiteri asked Capps how he and his legal team paid to get the camera footage. “I would suggest to you that the evidence was false. That you say you wanted CCTV to exonerate you, but that’s just nonsense. You don’t know if that was on the footage or not.”
Capps replied: “It’s not ridiculous. We looked at the footage, at least some of it … where the alleged crime happened.”
Spiteri said Capps had ample opportunity to make those mistakes. He replied: “I have not given them.”
The court also heard from the center’s director, who had been working for more than a week before the allegations were reported.
The director said when Capps was informed of the allegations, he said he was playing “doctors” and that they could see that from the cameras.
The court heard that while the station had 12 working cameras, they were not used to monitor staff, and were instead used in cases of vandalism or other property offences. However, if a complaint was made about the employee, the photo would be reviewed, the court heard.
Senior Constable Alexander Pearson, from the Child Protection and Investigation Unit, told the court that many of the images recovered from the center were destroyed.
Pearson said although he had tried to correct it within the Queensland Police Service, some of the images could not be found.
When asked about how police interviewed the three-year-old boy about the allegations, Pearson said the boy was shy and reserved.
Capps’ legal team told Pearson that the police interview was completely conclusive. Pearson agreed.
Capps denied that he was ever alone with the boy when he allegedly raped him. He he was suspended with full pay, and terminated two days later. The court previously heard that Capps had been a teacher at the center for about three months before he allegedly committed the offence.
The case is ongoing.
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Chloe Read is a crime and court reporter at the Brisbane Times.Connect through X or email address.
